Such an apparatus normally has at least one treatment station into which molded objects may be moved for treatment by a conveyor, wherein the conveyor has at least two conveyor strands extending in the travel direction of the molded object, wherein at least one conveyor strand—preferably at least two conveyor strands—can be moved in the travel direction of the molded object. In the scope of the invention, molded object means in particular voluminous molded parts whose lengths transversely to the travel direction as a rule are greater than in the travel direction. However, the length of the molded objects can basically be the same both in the travel direction and transversely to the travel direction. The molded objects for example can be containers, pipes or the like. In the scope of the invention, treatment means in particular the treatment of the surfaces of the molded objects and above all the heat treatment of these surfaces, as well as coating, for example painting of the molded object surfaces.
An apparatus for treating a molded objects of the above-described type is basically known in practice. With this known apparatuses, as a rule two conveyor strands in the form of drive chains or transport chains are provided that extend in the travel direction. Respective holding bolts are each connected at opposite ends of the molded objects to the drive chains via mounts in the form of seats. The molded objects are in particular essentially cylindrical coil cores that have wound fiber strands impregnated with liquid duroplast plastic on their surface. The treatment station is a hardening chamber of a treatment oven and/or a coating station, for example as a painting station. The molded objects are guided by the conveyor strands through the treatment oven for hardening of the liquid plastic and/or through the coating station for coating of the possibly already hardened plastic. The holding bolts of the molded objects are each connected via a respective pivot bearing to the seat of the respective drive chain, so that rotation of the molded object is possible. The seats are fixed to the drive chains or transport chains. With this known apparatus for treating a molded objects, both drive chains have a predetermined and fixed separation from one another. In order to be able to treat molded objects with different lengths, different-length holding bolts are used. This has the disadvantage that a plurality of different holding bolts have to be kept. Furthermore, for stability reasons, not all lengths of holding bolts can be used. These known measures are complicated, time-consuming, and expensive.
In addition, it is known to widen a drive chain or transport chain transversely to the travel direction in order to accommodate molded objects of different lengths. This necessitates a complicated adjustment. In addition, a batch of molded objects must always be run through the treatment device before the device can be set to another length of the molded objects by widening of its drive chain. The known measures are thus in need of improvement.